Various types of apparatus are known to control damage to printing machine in case a web passing through the machine should tear, see for example German Patent 21 56 505. Tear of the web can be sensed, as well known, in various ways, for example by an optical sensor. Apparatus as known have the disadvantage that the rollers or cylinders which are used to roll on a torn web are activated only with delay when a web tear has been sensed by a web tearing arrangement. As described in the referenced Patent 21 56 505, optical electrical control systems are used to determine tearing of a web, and generating a "torn web" signal when a web tear is sensed. As soon as a web tear is sensed, the signal causes deflection of the torn web, and the signal causes activation of capturing rollers engaged against each other to wind up the torn web. Damage to the printing system is thereby prevented since the torn web will not wrap itself about rollers or cylinders of the printing machine. The referenced U.S. Keilhau Patent 5,036,765, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference, as well as the German Patent Disclosure Documents 32 15 473 and 35 00 719, show the history of efforts to increase the response speed of paper capturing apparatus. This history extends over many decades. The ever increasing printing speeds, and hence web passage speeds of web-type rotary printing machines, and especially offset rotary printing machines, cause increasing problems with respect to delay of response of a damage control cylinder or roller pair with respect to actual sensing of a web tear. The components used in the damage control systems have inertia and it is hardly possible to decrease the response speed below a period of about 30 milliseconds.